Listen to music and podcasts on your Apple Watch

You can listen to Apple Music and Apple Podcasts, control what's playing on your iPhone, and manage playlists from your Apple Watch.

You can listen to Apple Music or stream Apple Podcasts on your Apple Watch Series 3 and later with a Wi-Fi or cellular connection. Use any Apple Watch to control the music on your iPhone or sync playlists to your Apple Watch to enjoy without your iPhone.

Listen to Apple Podcasts

With watchOS 5, you can use the Podcasts app to play shows and episodes. If you have an Apple Watch Series 3 or later, open the Podcasts app on your Apple Watch, scroll up, then tap Library. You can also use Siri to play shows from the Apple Podcasts catalog. On any Apple Watch with watchOS 5, you can sync Apple Podcasts to your watch.

To listen to podcasts on your Apple Watch, go to Settings > Podcasts and make sure that Sync Podcasts is turned on.

Control audio playing on your iPhone

When your paired iPhone is in range, open the Music or Podcasts app, then scroll to the top. Tap On iPhone to view your phone's Library and start playing music or podcasts.

If you started playing music or podcasts on your iPhone and you want to view what's playing, open the Music app or Podcasts app, scroll up, and tap Now Playing.

Sync music and podcasts to your Apple Watch

You can add specific albums, playlists, and podcasts to your Apple Watch by syncing them. After you sync, you can play the music on your Apple Watch without your iPhone.

Sync music to your Apple Watch

Set your Apple Watch on its charger and make sure that the device is charging.

On your iPhone, go to Settings > Bluetooth. Make sure that Bluetooth is turned on.

On your iPhone, open the Apple Watch app, then tap the My Watch tab.

Tap Music > Add Music.

Choose the music that you want to sync.

Under the Automatically Add section, you can turn playlists off or on. Music that's in heavy rotation is automatically added to your Apple Watch. And if you're an Apple Music subscriber, personalized mixes are automatically added to Apple Watch.

If you can't add specific albums or playlists, try downloading them to your iPhone before you sync with your watch. You can't add audiobooks to your watch.

Sync podcasts to your Apple Watch

By default, all your Apple Podcast subscriptions sync to your Apple Watch when it’s charging. Episodes are automatically removed from your Apple Watch after you listen to them, and shows that you subscribe to refresh automatically with new episodes.

If you want to manually choose podcasts to sync, open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone, go to My Watch > Podcasts, and tap Custom. Then choose shows with episodes in your podcasts Library to sync to your Apple Watch.

Remove music from your Apple Watch

On your iPhone, open the Apple Watch app, then tap the My Watch tab at the bottom of the screen.

Scroll to Music and tap it, then tap Edit in the upper-right corner. You'll only see Edit if you have music synced to your watch.

Under Playlists & Albums, tap next to any music that you want to remove, then tap Delete.

You can also turn off any automatically added playlists that you don't want on your watch.

Do more with music and podcasts on your Apple Watch

You can start a specific playlist every time you begin a workout. Open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone and tap My Watch. Tap Workout, then tap Workout Playlist.*

If you don’t want Now Playing to open automatically, you can turn it off. Open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone and tap the My Watch tab. Tap General, then tap Wake Screen and turn off Auto-launch Audio Apps.